


now every time i look at you, something's on my mind

by fiveaces



Series: come and go with me [5]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, M/M, teddy boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 07:23:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19740937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveaces/pseuds/fiveaces
Summary: Alfie comes back with a present. Tommy stares at it for some time and finally cracks, asking, “What is it?”“A hat,” Alfie announces proudly. It’s only been a couple of hours since he’s been back, but it already feels like he’d never even left. “See? It’s peaked. I heard that back in the ‘20s, gangs used to stitch blades right over here,” Alfie outlines the inside edge of the hat, “so they were hidden. They would cut up peoples faces with them. Pretty neat, eh? Though, fair warning, this one doesn’t have any blades.”





	now every time i look at you, something's on my mind

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Sh Boom Sh Boom" by the Crew Cuts.
> 
> Thank you so much to Vamillepudding for allowing me to use some of the dialogue they came up with when Alfie talks about the pub! It was lovely, and I'm so pleased you allowed me to put it in the fic (and that you beta-read it, too!) Thank you :D

The phone rings sometime after supper. Tommy’s upstairs, sitting by his open window, smoking a half finished cigarette and watching the sun settle low in the sky as night quickly approaches overhead. The neighbourhood’s shadows stretch out long and murky on the tarmac road, which still glistens from the rain that came during the afternoon. Everything is grey. Even the butt-end of his cigarette is dim; cheap turnout for a cheap price. 

The phone rings again, the second time around, and Ada picks it up. Tommy leans his head against the windowsill, half-heartedly listening to her speak to the person on the other end of the line. He finishes off his cigarette and then squashes the remains with his thumb in the old ashtray he’d brought up from the living room, a lazy sort of feeling washing over him. He thinks he can stay like this forever, stuck in time: just him, the orange sun that peeks from between buildings, and the sounds of the city settling down into night time monotony. He nearly falls asleep just sitting there with the warm taste of smoke on his tongue until Ada calls up to him from the landing. 

“It’s Alfie,” she says. “He wants to talk to you.”

He goes downstairs and takes the phone from her, watching her round the corner to finish doing the dishes; it’s her night for washing up. He makes sure she’s gone out of earshot before he speaks, hesitant even though he knows Ada knows everything and doesn’t really care either way.

“You’ve arrived?” he asks. Alfie left early that morning, Tommy had seen him off until the white puffs of the train smoke could’ve been mistaken for clouds on the horizon. They’d had tea in the little station café with the scuff-marked walls, just the two of them, Alfie’s sister and her husband waiting outside. Alfie had looked at him intently throughout, eyes warm, and he’d nudged Tommy with his shoulder just before he’d boarded the train, tipping his hat politely and ruffling Tommy’s DA just for the sake of it. 

“Yeah.” Alfie’s voice crackles through the phone and Tommy closes his eyes, digs his thumbnail into his palm. “Just a couple of hours ago, but I didn’t have the time to call until now.”

“Right,” Tommy says. Alfie had told that he’d be gone to London for a few days at most for a cousin’s bat mitzvah. He’d said this when they were lying on the sweet-smelling grass at the outskirts of Birmingham, right at the middle of where country meets city, and the border between urban life and the rural one was more obvious. Alfie had looked at him expectantly, head turned so his cheek was on the grass, and all Tommy could focus on were his lips. They were a dark pink, worried between teeth near constantly, whether they were Tommy’s own or Alfie’s.

“I know you’re Jewish,” Tommy had said. Alfie had stared at him in surprise. “Your last name clued me in, and if that hadn’t, then your prick definitely did.”

“No fucking way,” Alfie had replied. “You’re pulling my di–er, leg here. You couldn’t have caught on.”

“I’m not a fucking idiot, Alfie,” Tommy had deadpanned. He’d looked over at him from the corner of his eyes, and gave him a little smile. A barely there quirk of his lips, quick enough, but not nearly as quickly as Alfie had turned on his side to kiss him on the ear, of all places. “It’s fine. It’s not going to, uh, change anything or whatever else you’re worried about.”

“The last thing I would be is worried, Tommy,” Alfie had responded, but Tommy saw clearly the way his edges had softened, as if he’d slumped in relief. 

Now, Alfie’s on the other end of a long telephone line, probably still wearing the same clothes he wore on the train, and he’s doing that shallow breathing he does when he’s on the phone. “Yes,” Alfie says, and there’s bit of shuffling at his end before it settles back again to just breathing. “I’ve been banished to the living room. The sofa’s not half as comfortable as I had thought it would be. A bit lumpy, if I’m being completely honest.”

“Yeah, well. It’s not a bed.”

Alfie hums in lieu of an answer and Tommy, in a sudden pang of feeling, reaches up to press his fingertips on the bruises on his collarbone that Alfie had left a few days prior. They don’t sting anymore, fading away steadily, but they’re still in the shape of Alfie’s mouth. He remembers the first time Alfie’d left one, low enough that it just about peeked up from the collar of his shirt. Tommy had stood in front of the bathroom mirror for minutes just inspecting it from every angle. Looking back, he thinks it was some sort of disjointed fascination. Like he hadn’t known what to do with himself and the marks Alfie left behind long after the risk of every tryst and hair’s-breadth escape from being caught. He still doesn’t know how to handle it, really, not even after all this time. 

“What’re you thinking about up there?” 

Tommy shakes himself out of his head. “Huh?”

“You know,” Alfie responds. “You suddenly went quiet there. Didn’t glaze over all of a sudden, did you? Tommy, dearest, I’ve been telling you near constantly it wouldn’t do having you larking about with your head in the clouds. A man can get killed because of that.”

“I wasn’t doing any of that,” Tommy protests. “For someone who’s been travelling for a good chunk of the day, you sound far too alert.”

“I had a little kip in the train,” Alfie replies, sounding cheerful. “What with you keeping me up for most of the previous night.”

Tommy digs his thumbnail harder into his palm, turning the skin around it white. When he lifts his thumb, there’s a crescent - shaped mark there, that slowly turns back to a normal pinkish colour. He should cut his nails soon. “Shut up,” he says. 

“I’m just telling the truth, is all,” Alfie insists, but he lets go of the subject. He talks about other things instead, mostly about his family, all the cousins and uncles and aunts who had come for the celebration, related or otherwise. After a while, Alfie runs out of things to say about them, and Tommy tries not to think about the telephone bill. 

“Funny thing,” Alfie says after a bit. “When we were out the station, yeah, and passing through Camden? I found out the pub, uh, _King’s Landing_ , got taken down. There’s a store being built there now.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” Alfie continues. “I don’t fucking know, I’ve never been there once in my life, but walking down that street, seeing a pub but knowing it is only me who sees it, you know? Way of memories, that. Pub gets taken down, people forget, some remember, but most forget, don’t they? People have a habit of forgetting things they can’t see. But, anyways, this pub, yeah? It was sort of like a landmark and now it’s gone for good. Nothing to remember it by but the people who’ll think about it from time to time when they walk past and see all the clothes and whatever-the-fuck they’re selling there now,” Alfie pauses, and then just as quickly he goes on, “There's a sort of museum in the Kings Cross area, at Woburn House, in Bloomsbury, though I'm sure you don't know where that is. We’re going there tomorrow, it’s called _The_ _Jewish Museum.”_

Tommy can’t help himself. “No fucking way. Did you know this before?”

Alfie lets out a laugh. “No. That’s the funny bit. They told me when we were discussing plans and the like because we need to do some shopping here to bring back some things home, right? I didn’t even _know_ it existed until that moment. Honestly, these fucking people. London is mental.”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, a tight feeling balling up in his chest when Alfie said the word ‘home’. Christ, he doesn’t even know what’s gotten into him. Maybe he ate too much during supper and the food’s gotten to his head, or the like. “Look, I have to go. Polly’s got to make some calls, and I can’t keep her waiting long.”

“Sure,” Alfie replies, and if Tommy didn’t know any better, he’d say he sounded a bit forlorn. “Talk to you some other time, eh? I’ll be back in a couple days, anyways.”

“Yes. Goodnight,” is all Tommy says, and doesn’t even wait for Alfie to respond likewise before he’s putting down the receiver in its place and then bounding up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. Ada’s long done with the dishes by now, and she’s upstairs in her room, the door shut. So is everyone else, except Finn, who keeps his door open a smidge during the night. 

Tommy peers into his room to check if he’s asleep, that too-tight feeling still nestled in his chest. He sees Finn’s head on the pillows, turned away so that only the back of his head can be seen, and in the yellow light of the hall, the contented rise and fall of his blanket. Tommy closes the door again, leaving it open a crack, and quietly makes his way to his room. It’s not late at all, barely what could be constituted as an appropriate time for bed for someone Tommy’s age, but he brushes his teeth and shucks off his clothes anyways, slipping under the covers and pulling them up to his ears. 

A couple of minutes pass by, the thudding of Tommy’s heart unnervingly loud in his ears in the stillness of his room. He keeps his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, and wonders what the hell he’s going to do with Alfie. A car horn goes off in the distance, making Tommy startle. He realises he’d left his window wide open, and from where he’s lying, he can just about make a couple of stars in the dark sky. Out in the country, Tommy knows, there would be hundreds, thousands. But in the city, the lights drown them out. He doesn’t bother to shut the window.

In the end, Tommy gives up and closes his eyes, feeling the sting from keeping them open and un-blinking. He won’t sleep properly, he can tell, he rarely does, but he can try. Eventually, he drifts off just as the sky begins to pinken with sunrise, and when he wakes up again, it’s high noon. He doesn’t bother with breakfast when he gathers the energy to wander down the stairs, and that tight feeling in his chest comes back when he thinks about how Alfie would fuss and try to make something to eat; if not for the day’s activities, then for the sole purpose of spending more time alone before they’d have to head out into the wider world. No one else is in the house except him, off doing whatever they have to do. 

Tommy brushes his teeth and wears yesterday’s clothes, styling his DA half - heartedly in the bathroom mirror, careful not to use too much gel, and then he goes down to his usual spot near the city-centre but without Alfie. He meets up with others, with kids he’s noticed he’s begun to see less and less off, all of them wandering their separate ways now that the school days are officially over for them. The tightness from the night before stays, just off the centre, and no matter what Tommy does during the following days, it doesn’t go away.

_______

Alfie comes back with a present. Tommy stares at it for some time and finally cracks, asking, “What is it?”

“A hat,” Alfie announces proudly. It’s only been a couple of hours since he’s been back, but it already feels like he’d never even left. “See? It’s peaked. I heard that back in the ‘20s, gangs used to stitch blades right over here,” Alfie outlines the inside edge of the hat, “so they were hidden. They would cut up peoples faces with them. Pretty neat, eh? Though, fair warning, this one doesn’t have any blades.”

“I hope it doesn’t,” Tommy says. “because I’m giving it to Finn.”

Alfie frowns. “It’s for you.”

“I can’t wear it,” Tommy insists, and then points at his hair. “See? It’ll ruin the styling.”

He watches Alfie’s eyes soften, and when he speaks, his voice is laced with fondness. “How can I forget? You’re vain about your hair just as much as about the rest of you.”

“Bugger off,” Tommy says, but he lets Alfie swing an arm around his shoulders instead. He stuffs the hat in one of his trouser pockets and tries not to meet Alfie’s eyes. “Okay, I’ll keep it. But I won’t wear it.”

“Won’t wear it often,” Alfie tries to correct, and then cuts off when Tommy levels him with a glare. 

“At all,” Tommy emphasises. “I won’t wear it _at all_. But I’ll keep it.”

Alfie shrugs one-shouldered, just so he can keep his arm around Tommy’s own shoulders, a habit of his, and that familiar tightness that’s been in Tommy’s chest for days lessens. “Whatever you say, Thomas,” Alfie says, and Tommy lets him have it. After all, he did bring back a present that makes a lump in Tommy’s pocket and spreads a warmth prickling down the back of his neck. 

“Sure,” Tommy replies, he looks straight ahead at the stretch of sidewalk and not much else. Alfie is warm next to him, the sleeve of his jacket hot whenever it brushes against the back of Tommy’s neck. “Bring back anything else?”

“Oh such and such for the house. We would’ve gotten them here, but those are particular to London, or at least pop up there first,” Alfie hums, squinting up at the sky before turning to Tommy. “Remember how I said that they’d knocked down one of the pubs? I learnt there’s a couple other places gone, too, and they’ve already started replacing them.”

“Things move fast there,” Tommy acknowledges, shoving his hand down the same pocket where the hat is. He strokes it with the backs of his knuckles and tries not to stumble when Alfie removes his arm from his shoulders. “You must miss it, huh? All those things happening.”

Alfie shrugs again. He smiles, bumps his shoulders with Tommy. “Birmingham has its own quiet charms, too.”

Tommy tries his best to not look at him, to keep on staring at the sidewalk or the horizon, anything but gaping at Alfie like some sort of fool. He has to clench his hand tight around the hat, and relaxes it just as quickly, not wanting to get it out of shape. “Sure.”

Alfie doesn’t say anything else, but when they’ve rounded the corner, he looks up at the sky again, and lets out a low whistle. “Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day today, huh?”

Tommy looks up too. The sky is this crystal clear blue, with a full sun and a few white clouds that drift lazily across the never ending expanse. A cool breeze brushes past them, and Tommy lets himself give out the quietest of sighs with it. “Yeah,” he says. “I read it in the papers.”

“No sign of rain? Or strange weather?” Alfie asks.

“None at all.”

“They’re awfully good at weather forecasting here, in the Birmingham newspapers. Rarely get it right in the London ones.”

Tommy doesn’t reply. He does the only thing he can think of, which is to loop his arm across Alfie’s shoulders. Alfie turns his head, slightly, so his lips brush against the lobe of Tommy’s right ear. No one else is out on the street at the moment, so Tommy lets him. He also lets him press a kiss right behind the ear, and then he pulls back. 

“Thank you,” he says, “for the hat.”

Alfie grins, and under the canopy of an ice-cream parlour that’s been there since before Tommy can remember, he darts out a hand and takes Tommy’s own. He squeezes once, and then lets go when they’re out from the brief shade.

“Where are we headed to?” he asks. Tommy finally looks at him, shrugs, gives him the barest hint of a smile.

“Wherever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: _The Jewish Museum_ does exist! You can visit its website [here](https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/about-us/history/our-story/) and learn about its history and expansion.


End file.
